The cell was cold and the grey, cement walls made it feel dark even though the sunlight was pouring in through the window.
Sophie shivered and blew on her hands as she surveyed the little room. There was nothing much to it – three cots with a blanket on each, a little wooden table, the chair on which she sat and the blank piece of paper that lay before her.
Oh, that piece of paper! How could you ever hold all that I still want to tell the world?
There were things she wanted to say to her parents and the siblings that she would leave behind. Hopes and dreams which had never been voiced. Plans and ideas that could never happen now. Then there was the cause itself – it must be carried on.
She picked up the pencil but didn’t write. Instead, her eyes strayed to the window and she watched as the sunlight poured in through the bars.
Such a fine, sunny day! She recalled the dream she’d had in the night.
In her dream it was a sunny day, just as it was now. She thought of the child who she had carried. She thought of the steepness of the hill which led up to the church. If only she could have made it to the top!
She sighed. She could still feel the terrible sensation of the ground giving way; of falling as a chasm opened up beneath her. She trembled for a moment as she thought of what that chasm represented and yet, she felt a strange peace about it all. At least the child had been put safely down on the solid ground. She had only been meant to carry it for a while.
“The child is our idea. In spite of all obstacles, it will prevail.” She had told her cell mates earlier that morning. “We were permitted to be pioneers, though we must die early for its sake.”
The other girls hadn’t seemed to understand, but she hoped someone would. Someone had to carry on.
“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but how many are dying on the battlefield in these days, how many young promising lives.” She sighed. “What does my death matter, if, through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
She spoke aloud though there was now no one else in the cell. They were words which needed to be heard. She glanced down again at the clean, white sheet of paper.
Finally, she knew what to write. A single word would suffice to tell all.
She scribbled it across the page and then jumped to her feet for she heard a key turning in the lock.
A moment later, a guard led her out and the cell was left empty. Only the paper remained to tell of her presence there.
On one side, in the font of a typewriter, was the indictment which read:
‘Hans Fritz Scholl, Sophia Magdalena Scholl, and Christoph Hermann Probst are accused:
In 1942 and 1943, in Munich, Ausburg, Salzburg, Vienna, Stuttgart, and Linz, committing together the same acts:
I. With attempted high treason, namely to change the constitution of the Reich, and acting with intent to…
1.) organize a conspiracy for the preparation of high treason,
2.) render the armed forces unfit for the performance of their duty of protecting the German Reich against internal and external attack,
3.) influence the masses through the preparation and distribution of writings.
II. With having attempted, in the internal area of the Reich, during time of war, to give aid to the enemy against the Reich, injuring the war potential of the Reich.
III. With having attempted to cripple and weaken the will of the German people and to take measures against their defense and self determination.
The accused on the whole were willing to admit to their acts and on this account they are to be punished by death. Their honour and rights as citizens are forfeited for all time.’
They had done it all, just as the indictment said. They hadn’t denied it and they weren’t ashamed of it. They didn’t consider fighting injustice and pleading with the German people to surrender the war to be crimes.
Yes, it had all been done just as the indictment read. It had all been done through simple words. On the opposite side of the paper, Sophie had left one more.
One more word which enunciated all they had already said; all they had desired to achieve. One more word to plead with the German people. One more word to show the victory she felt even in facing death.
The word she scribbled on the back of the indictment was freedom.
Her brother, Hans, had left a similar message etched onto the wall of his cell. It was a quote that his father had him commit to memory as a child:
“Hold out in defiance of all despotism.” -Goethe
These siblings wanted the German people to be free but they knew that they could only gain freedom through surrender. While they fought for their own gain, while they continued to exercise cruelty for “the furtherance of their own people”, they could never truly be free.
Never free as God intended them to be free.
Hans, Sophie, and Christoph had forfeited their honour and rights as German citizens for all time, but in so doing they had maintained their honour and rights in a higher kingdom. It was this that they longed for Germany to understand.
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew xvi.25, NLT)
Hans, Sophie, and Christoph had freedom even in death. That was a true freedom. Not freedom to do what was right in their own eyes, but freedom to do that which was actually right.
They had died for exercising that freedom. Nazi Germany and its ideals would likewise have to die if its citizens were ever to taste that kind of freedom. The same is true for all that is wrong, sinful, and rebellious within you and I.
True freedom is not to do what you think is right, but what is truly right, no matter the consequence.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians v.1, ESV)
In Christ
Quiana
*The story above is written in a historical fiction format but it is entirely based off of the biographical record of Hans and Sophie Scholl as recorded by their sister Inge Scholl in The White Rose. The dialogue, indictment, and all other facts were taken directly from that resource.
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